Umerian Dramatis Personae
Council of Technarchs Dr. Michael O'Connell, First Technarch Dr. O'Connell, formerly a physicist specializing in magnetogravitic physics, became head of state during the Browncoat War near the end of 3391; that the war ended shortly thereafter was not a coincidence. He has proven to be a fairly capable leader, relatively effective at handling the inevitable contests of personality among the Council of Technarchs. O'Connell usually favors reconciliation of clashing interests, whenever he believes it to be possible. Many speculate that this was a key reason for his selection as First Technarch, after the turning point of the Browncoat War when the question of whether to dismantle the Independent Spinward Republic harshly or gently arose. The past eight years in office have turned Dr. O'Connell's thick head of close-cropped black hair to a silvery gray, though they have not reduced his commitment to remaining physically fit. O'Connell continues to devote at least an hour a day, if not more, to track and field exercises, with the stated ambition of one day being "the fastest unaugmented 150-year-old man alive." Dr. Maxim Chernov, Second Technarch for Foreign Affairs Dr. Chernov is something of a grey eminence in the Umerian state, as a highly experienced diplomat who has strong working relationships with most of the other Technarchs. Picked to run the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Selection of 3383, Chernov was a mainstay of the Umerian diplomatic community for many years before that point. While he has had little time for academia in the past generation, his extensive curriculum vitae centers on the analysis of power structures: locating the centers of gravity within a foreign system and finding leverage about which that system can be made to pivot. Chernov presents a smiling, affable, benevolent face to the world. Behind this mask lurks an equally smiling, affable, and benevolent personality. Where possible, he uses natural charm to his advantage in negotiations, but decades of self-discipline have trained him not to value cameraderie over success. As usual for Umerian diplomats, Chernov very rarely lies or even attempts to mislead those he talks to... but unlike the run-of-the-mill Umerian representative, he can be depended upon to have hidden agendas in mind. Dr. Susan Islington Warren-Marshall, Second Technarch for Ecology Dr. Warren-Marshall, who invariably prefers to be called "Susie," was born in Shepistan and completed her doctoral thesis in 3374, on the gene-tailoring of ground cover to make it inedible to branta canadensis horriblis, the dreaded "Mutant Hell-Goose" that had so ravaged the ecosystems of Shepistani worlds. Unfortunately, her work was cut short (and indeed totally disintegrated) in 3375 when General Sheppard's first act on emerging from the Vulture Rock command bunker wsa to declare War on Geese; Stackwater military contractors proceeded to launch a tactical nuclear strike at the experimental field where her custom-tailored plants grew. Suffering from a severe case of Only Sane Man Syndrome, Susie immediately emigrated from Shepistan, fleeing to the Technocracy of Umeria. There, she was diagnosed with esper abilities, albeit ones stunted by prolonged exposure to Blitzschlag Fields during her formative years. She is a moderately proficient pyrokinetic, and has the rare form of precognition known as "metacognition:" the ability to make intuitive mental leaps by exploiting closed timelike curves in her own brainstate. Her rise to prominence through the Umerian Bureau of Terraforming was fairly rapid, with marked success in halting the spread of toxic "red tide" plankton on multiple planets by tailoring various filter feeder species to prey on them, among other projects. Susie became Second for Ecology in the Selection of 3396. It is inferred but not proven that this was related to the revelation of MiniEcho files proving that her predecessor had been complicit in allowing terraforming problems on several Umerian fringe worlds to grow out of control, leading to economic crises that helped trigger the Browncoat Uprising of 3391. In a number of cases, Susie was on the record as having opposed allowing those problems to be ignored. Other reasons for her Selection are difficult to speculate on, given the extremely arcane and non-transparent nature of the Selection process. Military Admiral Antoni Juliusz Lisiewicz Admiral Lisiewicz commands the Space Security Force's Fourth Battlecruiser Division, attached to the New Tyre Fleet. Lisiewicz is of Pezookian extraction, and in spirit is similar to some of the more illustrious commanders of the famous Pezookian hussars and lancers. As a strategist, he favors deep raids and fast maneuvers to weaken an enemy's position before closing in for the kill with a decisive, locally overwhelming attack against the enemy's center of gravity. He is one of SpaceSec's most respected authorities on commerce raiding, as a consequence. When given leeway to operate freely, Lisiewicz relies heavily on bold maneuvers that disrupt an enemy's coordination and leave them scrambling to catch up, denying them the opportunity to execute their own plans. This makes him something of a bête noire ''for the ponderous and cautious ''Kaiserliche Marine of the Prussian Star League, though recent events have denied him the opportunity he craves to cut loose and show them just how dangerous an opponent he really is. Vice Admiral Vincente Quirino Vice Admiral Quirino is Lisiewicz's second-in-command, normally commanding Fourth Battlecruisers' screen element from the carrier Beehive. Quirino is an unusually scholarly officer even by Umerian standards, being well versed in fields such as history and philosophy along with more normal subjects for a naval officer, such as military science and astropolitics. Quirino is also an expert personnel manager, constantly trying to identify the most suitable people for a given task and attempting to cultivate their skills. This makes him a popular commanding officer, and also a good choice for exercises in foreign states, where it is necessary to make the best possible impression on allied forces. Vice Admiral Wen-li Yang Vice Admiral Yang is one of the more promising figures in the Umerian Space Security Force, with a gift for unconventional tactics and quick perception of an enemy's weakest points. He also has one of the highest publication rates of any military figure in the Technocracy, focusing on analysis of military history but making frequent forays into more peaceful aspects of that history. While initially something of a reluctant soldier, Yang found SpaceSec surprisingly tolerant of his academic inclinations, though few of his peers shared them to the same degree. Perhaps in consequence of his scholar-first-soldier-second personality, Yang's command style is extremely casual, with many regulations being relaxed to the limits permitted by the fleet, and with his staffers allowed broad latitude in their actions. The vice admiral himself often spends long periods in relaxed contemplation, and adopts a laid-back approach toward interactions with others; this is punctuated by sharp bursts of activity in times of crisis that often surprise those who do not know him well. One odd note about Yang is his appearance: due to cosmetic tinkering by a Haruhiist ancestor some generations back, his family tree contains a super-dominant gene for dark blue hair that has resisted attempts at gene-therapeutic removal for three generations. The vice admiral is rather ambiguous about this, alternating at unpredictable intervals between allowing his hair to adopt its odd 'natural' color and dying it black. In June 3400, after the hard-fought action at Hawk's Nest, the Umerians dispatched the Second Intervention Task Force under Yang's command to reinforce Hazarika's battered squadron. Yang took over the Umerian contingent after his arrival in very late June. Rear Admiral Ananya Hazarika Recently promoted to her current rank, Hazarika has jokingly been named "Umeria's goodwill girl" by a former commanding officer. Then-Commodore Hazarika was assigned command of the Umerian contingent to Bannerman in January 3400, where she oversaw the forward sensor picket and interception line of the blockade force. A breakdown in communications among the international force led to the relatively high-profile Magnolia incident, in which nearly a dozen Umerian cutters were destroyed before starship support arrived to finish off the Pendletonian recon destroyer. There was another very tense moment after the arrival of a large Centralist battlefleet in the system, which had been directed there by the Centralist dictator Gabriel Enduvos to support an unnecessarily complex operation to recover Centrality nationals on the planet. Three months and a promotion later, Rear Admiral Hazarika was assigned command of an enlarged force that would serve as the initial Umerian contingent for the coalition against the Zebesian pirates. Shortly after her arrival in June, Hazarika committed her squadron to supporting Centralist Commodore Gever Liggs and Task Force 23 in a raid on a major pirate base at Hawk's Nest. The two flag officers worked together fairly well during the hard-fought action, and together managed to neutralize an unexpectedly powerful enemy force to capture the station. Commander Audrey Cardwell Audrey Cardwell enlisted in SpaceSec during the Browncoat War and saw action as assistant weapons officer aboard a customs cutter- mostly against Independent smugglers, with one intense exception over Brennan's World against Browncoat pilots operating obsolete Shepistani Vipers obtained on the gray market. Postwar, she was promoted first to the pilot slot of a customs cutter, then transferred into pursuit cutters, where she made flight lead in 3397. Dispatched to the Bannerman system as part of the Umerian contingent's pursuit formation, she commanded a number of intercepts of Pendletonian merchantmen and blockade runners. Then, due to a communications error between the Coalition forces, the Umerians' starship support wound up behind schedule during the interception of a Pendletonian fast mover that turned out to be a light recon destroyer. The mixed pursuit/customs formation, lacking any heavy antiship weapons, suffered extremely heavy casualties during a ten to fifteen minute engagement. Then-Lieutenant Commander Cardwell took over the combined force after Commander Bob Copeland was killed, leading Piranha Group in an attempt to do at least some damage to the Pendletonian destroyer, slowing it down until starship support could arrive. Supported by a squadron of Hiigaran torpedo bombers they were narrowly successful, at the cost of roughly 35% casualties among her command. Private Citizens Dr. Alexander Martin Dr. Martin is head of the Laboratory for Exotic Condensed Matter Physics (LEXCOMP). He is Umeria's leading expert on the subject of exotic-physics interactions in crystalline substances, such as rubiconium. Indeed, he is arguably one of the greatest scientific minds of his generation in general, at least in Umerian space. His work ethic is unquestioned and his results are worthy of great admiration. Martin is ambitious, arrogant, dismissive of perceived inferiors, obsession-prone, and proud almost beyond belief. While irritating to those around him on occasion, these traits are considered to be within acceptable bounds for a Umerian master scientist, a role which Dr. Martin plays to the hilt. Martin is also unusual in that he suffers from a rare genetic condition that left him almost entirely hairless by the end of adolescence. Rather than accept any form of treatment, Martin simply shaved his head and remained proudly bald, in a society where this is extremely rare. Dora Lakatos Ms. Lakatos has already obtained an associate research position with the Waterville Institute's Academy for the Gifted on Sichuan. By metrics of raw esper ability she is unremarkable by the standards of first-rate psychics the galaxy over, but in both her research and her practice, she specializes in truly unusual and mind-expanding applications of the metacognitive faculty, giving her an uncanny sense of intuition and formidable high-order analytic skills. She is also unusual in having obtained Type Four citizenship at the age of sixteen. Geppetto Category:Character Information Category:Umerian Information